Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the participants of the Singapore-India Hackathon 2019 at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras on September 30.

The Singapore-India Hackathon is an initiative of prime minister Modi. Photo courtesy: Twitter/@iitmadras

The Singapore-India Hackathon is an initiative of the Indian prime minister and is a first of its kind joint international hackathon between India and any other country. This is the event’s second edition, with the first one being held at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore in November last year.

"The aim of this joint international hackathon is to promote engagement and collaboration of student community in India with the rest of the world and to develop innovative and out-of-the-box solutions for some of the daunting problems faced by our societies,” said R Subrahmanyam, Secretary, Department of Higher Education.

The 36-hour long fast-paced hackathon will be organised at IIT Madras from September 28-29. Modi will address the participants and give away prizes to the winning teams on September 30. Singapore’s Minister of Education Ong Ye Kung, Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, and HRD Minister of State Sanjay Dhotre will also be present at the event.

2nd edition of the Singapore-India Hackathon 2019 (initiative of Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi Ji) is coming to India this time!
The event will take place at IIT Madras from 28th-29th Sept. Stay tuned for more details on the non-stop, fast-paced 36 hours#Hackathon. pic.twitter.com/rWNYBgKgyi

This year the hackathon is focused on three themes, ''Good Health and well-being'', ''Quality Education'' and ''Affordable and Clean Energy''. It will see 20 teams participating and for the first time each participating team would comprise of three students from India and three from Singapore.

The team with the most innovative solution will be presented with prize money worth USD 10,000 while the second, third and fourth winning teams will get USD 8000, USD 6000 and USD 4000, respectively.

"The team is working on developing a method to measure attentiveness of students in a classroom using facial recognition, video processing and image processing. The system will help providing effective feedback to a teacher so that he or she can work on improving," said Subrahmanyam.

Another team is working on 'sentiment analysis' of students and yet another on a framework to track and avoid reuse of medical waste using sensor-based smart bins.

"The team is working on a solution to understand the psychological and emotional state of students by analysing their social media behaviour and see if we develop an early warning system," Subrahmanyam added.

The event is being co-organised by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), MHRD’s Innovation Cell (MIC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) along with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore and NTUitive Pte Ltd.